


Broken Mirror

by Desdimonda



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adult Rin, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Amnesia, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jinchuuriki Nohara Rin, Memory Loss, Multi, Nohara Rin Lives, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parallel Universes, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 02:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17930768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdimonda/pseuds/Desdimonda
Summary: This is just a bad night, right? Everything will come back after some food, a good walk and sleep.But after waking up in a bar, with just the clothes on her back, she doesn’t recognise anything. This place, the people - even her body doesn’t fit. The only thing that does is her name.As Rin tries to find out who she is, it takes her much closer to home than she realises.And will she ever see that home again?





	Broken Mirror

A breath. Then another, sliced apart her lungs. The air dripped with alcohol, coating her throat in a muddy fog. It felt like the clouds dipped low here, or this place pushed high. But she couldn’t taste a drop of liquor on her lips, so why was her head fucking pounding like she’d drained the bar, from tip, to toe.

People spoke. _Shut_ _up_. They laughed loudly. _Shut_ _up_. Dice rolled like rocks. _Shut_ _up_. A guitar plucked brightly from a stage at the back. _Shut_ _the_ _fuck_ , _up_.

Wet tongue met dry lips, licking away nothing. She licked again, wanting the stale paint of alcohol as an excuse. She tasted nothing, but the dry cracks on her lips, so deep she could count them.

Someone slid onto the stool next to her, their body too warm, their words too close. “Rough night, sweet thing?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up.”

He whistled, tapping the bar top. “It bites.”

She would. But she hadn’t even sat up yet. Or opened her eyes.

Sharp, a hand hit metal as she pushed back, sending an empty cup across the bar top, tumbling to a floor yet unknown. The loud ting of metal to stone made her jump, and she almost slid from the stool, but fingers seized the edge of the bar, nails piercing the wood for balance, pulling her ass back onto a seat she didn’t remember taking.

In a bar she didn’t remember entering.

“Watch it,” grunted the barkeep, slamming a hand between hers. “No jutsu in here - you got it? Want me to get Vivi?”

Who was Vivi?

“Right. Whatever,” she croaked, the words awkward on her tongue. Who’s voice was this? It felt strange, here. Jutsu. He’d said jutsu.

The last thing she had to do was open her eyes, so she did.

So that’s what he meant. In place of flesh, her fingers were glassy...was that, shell? Water? It was hard enough that it broke through wood like it was dry sand, crumbling beneath her touch, afraid. The plating extended from the tips of her fingers like claws, scoring the wood effortlessly. Jutsu. Right.

But she’d used no seals.

She pried her hands from the bar, watching shreds of wood fall onto her lap as tribute. She’d lifted her hands to prepare seals to dismiss the armour coating, but if she used none to activate this, how would she use them to dismiss?

Prick. She pressed the tip of a shelled finger into her palm. Malleable.

She squeezed her eyes tight. That wasn’t right.

Prick. An echo.

“What-“

Prick. It dismissed, rolling along her skin, away, beneath, leaving nothing behind.

Licking her lips, she searched for a pinch of poison, begging for something. A hint to why the questions were writing themselves faster than she could think. But it was still just indents on her lips, damp now from her tongue.

The company at her side laughed, the noise dull, echoing in his tankard.

“Where are we?” It was a demand that he didn’t like. But she felt like this was a place that people often spoke without consequence.

He grunted, setting down his tankard, slips of beer hitting the wood. “Really rough night huh?” His hair was long, but not untidy. His teeth were grey, with eyes to match. “Iwagakure.”

“What?” The stool almost toppled as she stood, but she caught it with a foot, her body speaking on its own. It existed beyond her reach. It wasn't here where she stood, but a pace away, detached from another existence, acting of its own accord. She took a sharp breath, remembering the way the air tasted when she woke.

Remembered. That was the first thing she remembered. That was the only thing she remembered.

“I said Iwagakure. Y'know, land of stone and all that-”

“I know what it means-” she snapped, looking from face to bar to tables to stage, the guitar still being plucked gently, accompanied by a sotto voice.

But she didn't know what any of this did.

“You sure don't look good. Sit with us, girl. Get a few drinks in you,” he said with a grin, half hidden by his tankard, fingers tapping the smudged metal.

One more question.

“What year is it?”

Why did that matter, it wasn't as if she had a reference to hold one up against the other. She had nothing. It was filling the blanks in a form, ticking the right boxes when you didn't know which ones were correct.

“65,” he said, lazy, but curiously. Who asked what year it was?

Sixty five? She felt like she should be abhorred by this number, or accept, or understand. But it was just a number.

He turned around on his stool, elbow to bar. “You don't even look like you know your own name.”

Touching her face, she looked back at the guitarist, drawn to the pluck, pluck of his strings, feeling the way the notes touched her ears.

“That's the only thing I do know.”

 

* * *

 

Rin. Rin.

She tasted the word on her tongue as she pushed through the busy street, uncaring who she shoved out of her way. Regret hit her stomach that she didn’t stay at the bar and drink. Her head was already spinning, what did some more chaos matter?

Someone knocked her shoulder hard. She knocked back, watching them stumble into their friend, almost losing footing and dignity to the ground.

“Fucking watch it-“

Rin swivelled, extending a finger. It was just then she realised she was wearing a cloak. “Or what?”

They just backed off, comeback lost to an uncertainty in their eyes, because of something they had seen in hers.

She touched her face, fingers pressing just beneath her eyes, feeling the sunken bags she knew were there, but not why. Mirror. She needed one. Rin looked up, around, avoiding the faces that passed by. She turned back around, seeing her reflection that had already been there in a dirty shop window, blackened by closing hours.

Rin stepped back, rubbing her eyes. They weren’t meant to be red, pricked yellow.

Rin stepped forward, opening her eyes. They were brown. Just, brown.

Fingers scratched her chest, ignoring the rumble of her heart.

The rest was something she understood. Mostly. The soft, round face that framed distinct features. Lips that were small, but full for what she’d been given. Yet they were damaged, a smudge of blood marring the edge of her mouth. Eyebrows set low above her eyes - brown eyes - and one was half picked clean. She reached up on instinct, pulling a hair. She didn’t remember this, but it felt normal.

“Shit.” Breath fogged the glass, blurring her mirage, but she could still make out the purple marks on her cheeks. Nails scratched her skin. Again. Harder. She swore, the edge of a nail breaking skin. Not makeup. Threads of her auburn hair stuck this way and that, fallen free from a thick, heavy braid she had pulled to the side, framed by an uneven fringe. When had she been this messy? Or was it carefree?

_What_ _one_ _am_ _I_.

 

* * *

 

At least she looked like she fit in. Beneath her long, black cloak she wore leggings, sandals, their wraps bound around her calves. Her waist cinched by a thick belt, decors of feathers, buttons, stitchings of symbols that she didn’t understand adorning the thick leather. Beneath, a purple tunic wrapped her body, skimming the top of her thighs.

“I guess I like purple.” The colour was nearly identical to the markings on her face as she held up the collar of her tunic to cheek, checking another dark window. “Who matches their clothes to their face? Me I guess.”

Rin pushed away from the window, avoiding a loud drunk group.

She kept walking. And walking.

And walking. It was dark when she woke up, and it was getting later. But sleep was the furthest from her senses. Sleep had been her beginning here and she was afraid it might give her an end. She didn’t want to go back to it, lest it pull her away somewhere else, new, and this time she wouldn’t even have her name.

Why was her name picked as something she was allowed to keep? A last breath that was constantly teetering at the back of her throat, neither in, nor out, The missed beat of her heart’s rhythm, expelled; the only note she understood to a song that was mute.

Feet splashed in a shallow puddle. The water felt good between her toes. The puddle rippled wildly, reflecting light after light above, colours she hadn’t realised were here. Pinks and blues, greens and yellows, mismatched sprinkles, moulded into shapes and words, advertising, enticing to what they pointed at below, and above.

How long had they been here?

The reflection of the guitar’s surface she'd listened to in the bar sat before her eyes, rippled pink and red, almost in rhythm to its plucks.

All the time. She just hadn’t looked.

 

* * *

 Logically Rin knew she should sit down, find paper, pen, and list everything of herself she knew. Then write down the last thing she remembered before waking up at the bar, and work her way back from there. But sense, was gone, and in her gut she knew that before that first muggy breath, she'd find nothing.

So she went to find food. To try for some normalcy amidst a mind that screamed the unknown, into the unknown.

Rin thought about what to get, but she realised that she didn't really know what she liked. There was no better time than now to follow her nose.

As she wove in between the crowd before several food stands, she wondered if she'd ever been here before, walking the cobbled stone steps. Would anyone recognise her? So far, she was faceless and ignored, a background patch in a painting, glossed over once. Part of her was glad, but the other, wasn't. She wanted someone to come up to her with a cheerful ‘Rin! It's you!’ and disclose a surname, an anecdote, an amusing piece of trivia number 37 of Rin’s life.

Life. How _old_ was she?

“Well?” said the fruit seller, leaning over her stock. “This ain't a painting.”

Strawberries. A sea of strawberries. From ruby red to pink, to misshapen, to small and ungainly large. Just, strawberries. Rin breathed deeply, aware of her giddy smile as she remembered eating a whole punnet as she sat on a rooftop, a white, curved mask by her feet. Teeth bit into the skin, the tiny seeds breaking the smooth, juicy flesh.

Nothing else made sense in that flick of a memory but the taste of those strawberries. Their sweetness was delectable, but it was nothing compared to that small taste of memory. Of her.

“How much?”

As the seller replied, she realised her question was moot. She had no money. No supplies. Nothing to barter, but the clothes on her back.

Rin left, her steps hurried, ignoring whatever else it was the seller said. She'd had everything taken from her, what did it matter if she went and took a little something back?

 

* * *

_Not_ _that_ _one_.

_Maybe_ _him_. _He_ _looks_ _drunk_ _enough_ _to_ _be_ _easy_ _pickings_.

Rin stalked the streets, trying to find the best subjects to acquire what she needed - money. There were several ways she could do this. Coercion, flirtation, intimidation - but she chose straight up thievery. Somehow the shadows fit and felt right. She knew this one was the best out of all her options. And it made her gag the least.

She wasn’t quite sure how that made her feel, but there wasn’t exactly anyone she could turn to. Walking up to the nearest clinic and confessing loss of possessions, self and memory? The thought felt both ludicrous and the last thing she’d ever do. Breaking the law felt better.

It was well into the night, now, and its creatures prowled. She tried to keep where the neon lights shone, while also kissing the shadows, dipping in, out, as she calculated her opportunities, collecting her dues slyly from passers by, drunken stragglers, locals who hadn’t noticed her existence and tourists, their eyes blind to anything that wasn’t neon or naked. But she found that she was better at this that she expected. It was instinct. It was natural. She slipped in, by, unseen. And if seen, her subject was blind to her truth.

Had she been a criminal? Desperate? Just a general piece of shit?

Rin smirked, rubbing her temples at the thought. She’d landed in the right place for all three scenarios. Maybe this was her home, and she’d just had a really, really bad night. But nothing else here was falling in as easily as the thievery. That was more like her body acting on its own. The rest was something her mind had to recognise and know.

She hadn’t touched her heart, yet.

Her headache hadn’t shifted, and it was starting to make this difficult. It had only gotten worse, spreading to her eyes. She rubbed them often, wondering if the flicker of red and yellow she’d seen had anything to do with this pain - or was just simply something she’d imagined. That would be easier to believe if she hadn’t been the only one to see it.

“Do I use eye drops or something?” she said to herself, rubbing her eyes for the fourth time in as many minutes. Rin dipped her hand into the satchel she’d taken off some passed out guy, emptying it of anything that might come back to him, keeping the bare essentials. She’d stolen enough money to get her by for a week or two. She thought. She hoped. Her concept of how much things cost here didn’t exist, she realised.

Stepping beneath the hang of a shadow, Rin leant back against the cold wall of a building, feeling the loud hum of the music inside rattle her bones.

She wanted those strawberries.

 

* * *

 Two streets along, around the corner, beneath a flashing, blue bowl of ramen - right? Or was it fruit. Fruit - it must have been, since the stand was strawberries. But she remembered the smell of fried squid, of hot, rice noodles and teriyaki. Wasn’t there also dango?

She shouldered someone out of the way. Another. It was getting too close. A throng and sweat of people crowded the centre of the street, forcing her to shove past along a wall, uncaring what toes she stepped on or what arms she pushed. They were watching a brawl between two guys, the noise of their jutsus echoing of the tall buildings that loomed higher the further she walked down the street. For it narrowed the longer she walked, and the neon lights seemed to dull, but what remained flickered off beat, their hum sharp and loud, a welcome and warning.

Windows were sparse here, but doors just as many, names scrawled across with paint that glowed, or lights that shone. The windows were spared for a few restaurants, shops that sold unusual weapons, or clothes that were made to be taken off, or fucked in. She paused, admiring a purple corset displayed in a window.

“What’s with me and purple,” she said, before pushing off the window, only to find her back hit something. Or someone.

Rin turned quickly on her heel, reaching for a kunai. Shit. She should have stolen more than money. They smelled of her first breath here. Stale alcohol, dusty, like they were made here.

“Move,” she demanded to the woman who blocked her path, a head taller and wider.

She pushed Rin with a broad hand, and she hit the the window with her back. “No.”

“What’s your problem?” Rin pushed back. But regret swilled when she saw the woman wasn’t alone.

“We been watching you, little thing. Peck, pecking away at those who don’t look, thinking no-one can see.” She grabbed Rin’s wrist, yanking her away from the window.

“What of it?” she blustered, trying to pull free her hand. Stuck. She tried again, and this time it worked, her assailant crying out as a spray of blood fell from her palm. Looking down, Rin saw the same mirrored shell mould her fingers that had in the bar just after she woke up. She hadn’t made any seals, she hadn’t consciously willed it - what the hell was it?

Rin turned over her hand, watching the blood drip over her armoured fingers.

“You little-“

It wasn’t the woman that moved for her, though. In seconds, Rin’s arm was pinned to the locked door of the lingerie store by four explosive kunais, their connecting threads biting against her flesh.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he said, flicking the edge of a kunai with a gloved finger.

“And this is?”

He smirked, leaning against the door as he watched her, throwing his moaning friend the bandana from his neck. “You’ll live. Stop crying.”

“Bitch sliced my good hand with her weird hand. What is that anyway? You didn’t use any seals,” she said, wrapping the cloth around her wound. “Some bloodline?”

Rin wished she had an answer. More so than a way out of this. They’d probably just take the money she’d stolen and move on. She could get more. But this bullshit with her hands wasn’t going anywhere.

“What's it to you?” She might have expected to be afraid in a scenario like this. Two versus one. Her life possibly theirs. But her heart fluttered in trepidation at the whiff of a fight. Little things about who she was were breaking through to the surface. She might have thanked them if they weren't pissing her off.

“Well. We've been watching you, you see,” he continued, flicking at one of the threads against her arm. “Picking pockets that aren't _yours_ , in a place that isn't yours either.”

Rin tried wiggling her fingers, but the threads between the kunais were pulled tight. Her shell claws could fix that, if she knew the magic word.

“The streets aren't yours,” she bit, staring at her fingers, willing them to do something, but getting nothing.

“Actually, they are. This here bit is ours, kid-

“Kid.” Rin made a face, sure she was older than him. Maybe not her.

He slammed her other hand back against the window. Rin heard a crack. “You took what's ours. So we're taking it back.” He yanked the bag from her shoulder, but she stopped him, catching the end of the strap.

“I stole that fairly.”

“Go steal from some other streets, outsider,” growled the woman, pulling the bag as Rin lost her grip.

Rin lunged, almost losing her footing, but the binds of the explosive kunais kept her back. She pulled, and pulled, swearing in frustration at the vice, at his laughter, at her inability to figure out a single seal to counter this predicament.

Her heart hurt. Her eyes burned. Something ached at her lower back.

“Get your kicks taking from those down and out, huh?”

Her two assailants exchanged looks, concerned. Just like those she had knocked into, that had fled without another word, an odd confused fear in their eyes because of what they had seen in hers.

The neon sign above began flickering, bright, pink letters reflecting off of Rin’s skin, skin that changed, the soft flesh of her arms shifting to an opalescent sheen.

“Hey uh, Van. Let's go.” She gripped Van and Rin's bag.

“Avi, the kunai-”

“Someone will find her-”

They wouldn't.

The more they talked, the more her arms changed, beginning from the tips of her fingers, sprouting claws just like the ones that had gnawed the wood at the bar and sliced Avi’s hand. The pain at her back extended. It felt, hot.

“Give it back.” Her words were sure, but her voice felt backed by something else, helped along in a way she hadn't yet found.

Van stepped back, glancing warily at his arrangement of kunai. “You break free, they'll all explode.”

_You'll_ _survive_.

Rin smiled. “Good.”

In a single, fierce motion, she broke free. She knew it would work, something told her so. The plating on her arm, blinking neon pink, extended blade sharp spikes to shred the connecting threads, and one by one, the explosive tags, discharged.

Wood splintered to a jigsaw as the door collapsed, cascading inside, and out. The glass hissed into unreadable shards, whispering through Rin's hair and kissing her skin, arcing up and over her shoulder, a falling, breaking wing, stained pink. And then she pulled around her arm that Van had trapped, unscathed, untouched - but changed. From fingertip to shoulder, where there had been flesh, there wasn't. She wished she could understand what it really was, but all she knew right now is that it had saved her.

Rin looked to her other arm, her fingers elongated claws. It was the same. Somehow, she felt like she knew why she woke up without weapons.

She’d never needed them.

_We_ _are_ _our_ _own_ _weapon_.

Dust and dirt had kicked up between Rin and foe, shielding the truth for a few seconds more. She stepped free.

Avi and Van, propelled by the force of the blast, caught their footing just in time. They hadn't expected this. It'd kill her. Or at the least, obliterate her arm.

Van crouched on the wall, the chakra at his feet humming as he watched. And waited. Avi, the bag slung against her chest, quickly shaped three seals and the sand and dirt at their feet began to wrap around her fists, forming a thick coating.

“She gotta be dead,” said Van, voice shaky and light.

“Wrong.”

Rin leapt from the destruction and into her own. Avi was first. She smelled like the real power, Van the faux. They were quick, but she was better.

Avi struck, but she cried out when all she hit was Rin's hardened shell, bolstered with spikes biting back to her punch. The sand and stone armour cracked, submitting, flecks catching Rin's lips.

_Weakness_.

Rin drew back and with a sharp snap, her claws shattered the sand and stone armour in Avi’s hand, breaking through to skin and bone. Avi tried to keep her yell subdued, but Rin could feel the tremor of her pain as she pulled her closer, her pierced hand leverage.

_Left_.

So he hadn't fled. Van threw kunai after kunai at her. Shuriken too. Rin dodged some, blocked the others, scratching the protective shell that blanketed her body. Rin pulled Avi closer, tearing her hand more. Van swore, launching at her with a short sword this time, but it wasn't an arm that stopped him, or a leg, or a jutsu of any kind.

Dragging him to a halt, the sword an inch from her face, a tail wrapped around his body, the red and yellow chakra pearlescent in the dim alley.

And she snapped him in half, the sharp click of his spine muted by the hum of Rin's chakra. She let go, his limp body sagging to the ground as Avi cried out for her dead companion.

Rin wasn't thinking, she was doing. Her body was commanded by her rage and confusion, the only things left that she could see.

_They_ _left_ _us_ _to_ _die_.

Pulling Avi closer, her wrist broke, but she barely even cried. She just stared, her eyes moving side to side, up, down as they followed the three tails cresting behind Rin’s head, hair painted red by the glow of her chakra - wild and raw she could smell its power, as if it could burn without touch.

“What are-” began Avi, as two of the tails whipped around. But her words, and life, were extinguished as the tips of the tails pierced her throat, goodbye.

Rin dropped her, shaking.

Rin fell to her knees, the tails withdrawing, one by one.

As the shell plating began to recede, her sense and awareness returned. Breathing became louder, harder. Her eyes wept salt, burning beneath the blink of pink that licked her flesh.

“What-”

_They_ _left_ _us_ _to_ _die_.

Rin scrambled back, hearing the words clearly, for a moment thinking one of her victims spoke.

“Who- I-”

_Isobu_. _Bijuu_. _Let's_ _save_ _this_ _for_ _when_ _you're_ _not_ _knelt_ _over_ _two_ _dead_ _bodies_.

“I'm losing it. I'm fucking losing it.” Her hands shook, her whole body did. And she could barely hear from the ringing in her ears, but she pulled the bag off Avi, wiping her hands again, again, as they covered in her sticky, spilling blood.

_Left_. _Time_ _to_ _run_.

So she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Her 3 tails abilities are basically things I headcanon and made up/expand on from Isobu’s initial arsenal. I just love the idea of her being able to use his shell plating for her own offence and defence. 
> 
> I’ve come up with a whole bunch of abilities based on her harmony with Isobu. I’m so excited to share them! 
> 
> Also. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I’m also just so excited about this fic overall.


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